


some kind of happy ending

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Relationship Negotiation, Unconventional Families, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 15:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: After coming back from Asia, Ward starts taking a few tentative steps towards figuring out the future.





	some kind of happy ending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Addison R (beyond_belief)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/gifts).



Ward comes back from eight months of running around Asia with Danny -- stealing magic guns from gangsters, fighting dragons (don't ask), exploring ancient temples, fighting zombies ( _really_ don't ask), and otherwise living a life that is one part tourist and three parts 1930s pulp novel -- to find a) zero messages from Joy, and b) the news that he is now the father of a three-week-old baby girl named, worrisomely, Aoibheann.

"How do you even pronounce that?" he asks Bethany when he finally gets her on the phone.

"Is that really the first thing you want to say after not calling for the better part of a year?" He can hear a baby fussing in the background. _His_ baby. It doesn't seem real. 

"It's pronounced 'Ayveen'," Bethany adds after a minute.

"So why not name her that?"

Bethany sighs audibly, sounding, in that moment, a lot like Joy. "It's Irish Gaelic. My mother is Irish."

_I didn't know that,_ he almost says, and also, _I thought maybe, as the father, I'd have some kind of veto power over names_. But instead he takes a breath. He's not that guy anymore, he's someone else, and he still doesn't know who that person is, but it's someone that (in Asia, with Danny) he was kind of, maybe, starting to like a little bit. And it's definitely not a person whose first conversation with the mother of his child involves biting her head off for giving his daughter a name he doesn't like.

"I'm sorry," he says, rubbing his eyes as he tilts his head back. "I'm sorry. Bethany. Please don't hang up." He's in an apartment he's been paying rent on for eight months while he was out of the country, sitting on a pristine couch that he's been having a cleaning service come in and faithfully dust once a week for the entire time he was gone, and it doesn't feel like home. It doesn't even feel _sort_ of like home. He's probably the dirtiest thing in the entire place. "Let's start over. Thank you for texting me to let me know. I'm sorry I didn't call. I've been ... gone. And giving you space. Or trying to. I thought it was what you wanted."

"I appreciate that," she says quietly. 

"Do you think I could ... meet her? Maybe?"

"We'll see."

"Okay," he says, opening his eyes and looking up at the too-high ceiling. This place is just too goddamn _big._ He tries to remember why it ever seemed like a good idea to rent an apartment big enough to fit a small airplane inside.

"I'm not saying no, Ward."

"I know you're not."

"Stay in touch," she says, her voice gentle. "We'll go from there."

"Okay. Okay, I can do that." He tries to remember that he's not someone who _pushes_ anymore, not on something as important as this. He's not that Type A asshole who stomped on shareholders' objections in meetings and trampled Rand's corporate rivals (and couldn't say no to his own father, he tries not to add).

He'll give her space and he'll be gracious about it and he'll do it not because he wants anything from her, but because he wants to be the sort of person _she'll_ want in her child's life. He wants to be, in short, the opposite of the kind of dad his father was.

"Do you need anything?" he asks her. "Money? I want to help, if I can."

"No," she says. "We're good for now."

"Ayveen."

"Yes." Her voice lifts, a little. "I'm not going to lie to you, Ward. I was glad you left town. I needed time to get myself together without you around. But I'm actually kind of glad you're back, too. Good night."

"Good night." And he adds, quickly, "Say good night to Aoibheann for me?"

She doesn't answer, just hangs up.

He holds the phone for a minute, and breaths slowly, in and out, the way he used to keep himself locked down when his father was talking to him. But it's not the same feeling this time, the raging cauldron of resentment and fury and misery. It's just a deep, aching, empty sadness. As he once said to Bethany, a long time ago, he wants to change things he can't change.

He wants a drink. He's not going to have it, but he wants it. While he's still thinking around the edges of that thought, his phone chimes to indicate an incoming text. He gets himself together and glances down.

It's a picture: a tiny, squashed-looking baby wearing a little knitted pink hat, illuminated by lamplight, shot on a camera phone that's tilted at a slightly clumsy angle -- as if it was just taken right now.

A second text comes in a moment later, also from Bethany: _Say good night to her yourself. We'll talk later._

_Good night, Aoibheann. Thank you, Bethany,_ he texts back, and then he just stares at the picture, mapping out her tiny, odd-looking features, looking for himself in them.

He remembers staring at Joy the same way, when he first met her lying in his mother's arms in the hospital. She was always his parents' favorite, he knew it even from the beginning, but he never blamed her for it. Never, not even once. With Joy, it was love at first sight, along with a surge of overwhelming protectiveness that made him aware, even at age five, that anyone who wanted to hurt her was going to have to go through him to do it.

It's a similar feeling with Aoibheann, except tempered by twenty-five years that have taught him exactly how many ways the world has to hurt you.

He's still staring at the picture when, some twenty minutes later, another text comes in. It's from Danny.

_Settling in okay? I'm jet-lagged as hell._

_Tell me about it,_ he texts back immediately, then regrets it, because it makes it look like he was wide awake with nothing better to do than stare at his phone.

Still, the reply from Danny comes back just as fast: _I'll be up for awhile, you want to call._

_Do you one better,_ he answers, and texts over the picture of Aoibheann.

Danny's answer is a string of heart emoji. The person who introduced Danny to texting with emoji (Colleen, probably) needs to have their ass kicked.

_Her name is Aoibheann,_ he sends back.

The phone buzzes. Incoming call. Danny.

"You're a dad," is the first thing Danny says.

"We knew that was going to happen. Not like it's a surprise."

"Yeah, but you're a dad. You're a _dad._ " Danny laughs, that bright laugh that can make Ward smile even at his lowest points. "You're a dad and I'm an uncle. How's it feel?"

There are a lot of things he could say to that. Flippant things, tossed off, nothing like what he really feels. _You're deflecting,_ Bethany would say. _You lead with asshole._ And Joy would say, _You only think about yourself, Ward._

That's not the person he wants to be, not anymore.

"It's huge," he says at last. "Too huge. I don't know, man. I don't know how I'm going to do this."

"One step at a time, I guess." Danny laughs again. He sounds a little drunk, but Ward doesn't think he is; it's just jet-lag, the fact that they're both twelve hours out of sync with this side of the world and crossed the International Date Line since they last slept. "C'mon, man, you can do this. We fought a _dragon."_

"I still can't believe we survived that, and have I mentioned lately how it was all your fault?"

"So ... Aoibheann. How do you pronounce that? Am I saying it right?"

"Ayveen is how her mom says it."

"Gaelic?" Danny says, because _of course_ Danny knows stuff like that.

"Show-off."

Danny laughs, and then there's a companionable silence when neither of them seems to want to hang up first. Ward thinks he might not be the only one who hasn't quite adapted yet to not being in each other's space 24/7. It was weird at first, and it's not like there weren't fights, but now he's alone in this big damn empty apartment, and ... He misses Joy like a severed limb, he misses Bethany, he even misses his dad in a weird, twisted way. And he kinda wishes Danny was here, that's all.

And then he thinks, well, he could ask. He's not sleepy yet. Maybe they could stay up a little while, watch some movies. Alcohol was good to quiet his mind on nights like this. But watching movies with Danny might work, too.

"You still there?" Danny asks.

"Yeah," Ward says, and takes a breath. "Hey, Danny --"

Danny says, "Hey, Ward --" at exactly the same moment, and then laughs.

"You first," Ward says, and that's it, he's not going to ask. Not tonight. He'll just ... read. Or maybe go over Rand files, try to figure out how to run the company he owns half of again.

"You're going to laugh," Danny says. "But Colleen's going out patrolling, and I'm not sleepy so I was thinking I'd come along, kind of get back into the swing of it, and we wondered, did you -- want to come?"

"Patrolling." It doesn't make any sense at first, and then suddenly it does. "The vigilante thing, you mean? Rooftops? _Me?"_

"You can stay off the rooftops," Danny says quickly. "Look, you're getting good at some of the hand-to-hand I've been teaching you. I know you can hold your own in a fight. And anyway, we could use a third. Someone to watch our backs."

"And drive the getaway car?"

"We could really use someone who _has_ a car."

" _You_ have a car."

"A car that's not parked in the Rand garage."

Ward closes his eyes briefly. It's early winter, a startling change from the tropical warmth where they've been. He's going to freeze his ass off, and that's if he doesn't fall off a rooftop and die, or get shot by some hoodlum holding up a liquor store.

Still ... he survived months of gallivanting around Asia with Danny, not to mention going head-to-head in a life-or-death fight against both his dad and Davos's right-hand man, and winning both times. That's got to count for something. Maybe a lot.

"You don't have to," Danny says, sounding unsure now.

"No, I'll get the car. Just tell me where to meet you."

Danny laughs delightedly and gives him a location in Chinatown, and the next thing Ward knows, he's pulling on a musty black wool jacket from the closet, and his warmest pair of gloves, and he's heading out to freeze his ass off on the goddamn rooftops of Chinatown.

Well, it ought to make his brain shut up for awhile.

He's a vigilante (somehow). And he's a dad. And he's part of a family -- a complicated, fucked-up family, but it's _his_ and maybe he has something here that he _wants_ to be part of, for the first time in his life.

Maybe tomorrow, he'll even try calling Joy.

_On my way,_ he texts Danny, and he's out the door, into the night.


End file.
